Tracis Beat Sheet

Published 1:21 pm, Monday, April 25, 2016

The release of this Buffet CD couldn't be any more perfect. It's right in the smack dab of summer, just when we're plenty ready for some tropical music and cool breezes to transport us to paradise.

Once again, beach bum Buffet is sitting in the sand, strumming his guitar by a bonfire, singing stories of everyday people looking for a way to escape. This time out, though, is a bit different. It's not just Jimmy. Some familiar cowboys and cowgirls have joined him in the music making, and the sound is interestingly new yet comfortably familiar.

The Good: The Mississippi-born, Alabama-raised former frat boy really can't be pigeon-holed into one musical genre - he's in a class all his own with his tropical folk-rock-country-pop concoctions.

On this CD, he's rockin' a bit more country, with guests including Clint Black, Toby Keith, Kenny Chesney, Alan Jackson, George Strait, Martina McBride, Bill Withers, and Nanci Griffith. There's a bit more twang in some of the tracks, but the tropical sounds of the steel drums join the country steel guitar to create a sound that unites the Florida beach with the Texas ranch.

The flavor of the music echoes the sight of a beach bum, dressed in a tropical shirt and flip flops but covering his head with a cowboy hat instead of a baseball cap. The great thing about this CD is the duets don't sound fabricated or forced. Each duet sounds like it was meant to happen, like Jimmy met up with the country singers at a bar and just started crooning together on the spot. The strongest tracks with the country stars are the current hit song "Hey Good Lookin'" with Black, Chesney, Jackson, Keith and Strait; the pro-play, anti-work "License to Chill" with Chesney; the cleverly written and humorous "Piece of Work" with Keith; the philosophical birthday song "Trip Around the Sun" with McBride (one of the best voices in country music); and the somber, thoughtful "Someone I Used to Love" with Griffith. As true Parrotheads know, this isn't Jimmy's first foray into singing with popular country artists, as he sang with Jackson on "It's 5 o'clock Somewhere" last year, which turned out to be Jimmy's first number one hit.

Despite the fact Jimmy says he's been a country singer for a long time and that he moved to Nashville in his 20s to make it big as a country singer, this album isn't quite country. There's still enough of Jimmy's "Margaritaville" style in the songs to set it apart from a country CD. About half of the songs are him crooning solo, being the grand storyteller he is.

The strongest solo tracks are the romantic ode to his wife "Coast of Carolina"; the sentimental, sweet ballad "Anything Anytime Anywhere"; the kooky twist on today's culture "Simply Complicated"; the tropical cover of the Grateful Dead song "Scarlet Begonias"; and the I'm-forever-a-beach-boy anthem "Back to the Island," which seems to let listeners know no matter who he sings with, it'll always be Tiki Time for Jimmy and he'll always be serving up that favorite frozen concoction and dreaming of that cheeseburger in paradise.

Jimmy has made more than 30 albums in his lifetime, and this could be considered one of his classics in years to come. Now, if we could just get him to come to Caseville.

The Bad: The tracks "Coastal Confessions," "Window on the World," and "Playin' the Loser Again" with Withers lack the zip of the other tracks, although the ending of "Coastal Confessions" is quite humorous, with Jimmy confessing to a priest and putting the priest to sleep.

The song with Withers drags like a tired horse in desperate need of water, although the two harmonize quite well.